Miss Daisy meets Miss Scarlett
by RosettaLoreta
Summary: In 1854, Mrs de Domergue, niece of a British Duke and her daughter Marguerite de Domergue are visiting Clayton County, Georgia, with their connections to French and British nobility they are naturally invited to Scarlett O'Hara's birthday party. However on closer acquaintance mother and daughter fail to meet expectations. Hateful Eight prequel fragment
She was a little hazel eyed blonde of about fourteen years of age, or a little more, one of the guests for Miss Scarlett's eighth birthday party at Tara. No-one that anyone knew, not a daughter of a longstanding and well regarded local family in Clayton County, but visiting in the county with her grandmother and mother, and seeing as the grandmother's sister was married to a Duke in England, being a stranger was of no account to cutting her off the guest list for such a special party as that thrown for Gerald o Hara's favourite daughter, being a more or less titled outsider actually made her a prize beyond price. Although in reality the mothers of Clayton County looking on proudly from the sofas and the chairs at their darlings in their best of clothes and their best of behaviours, felt a little short changed about the Duke's great niece. She wandered about a little sulky, as if she had already decided that at fourteen years of age she was nearly grown and an eight year old's birthday party was of little interest, being not impressed by the wealth or the prettiness of the birthday girl, or the masses of presents she received, and she certainly had no idea of social significance of the birthday girl's family in the county. Some of the women thought they had seen the Duke's great niece slyly kick a little girl in the shins and make her cry, but they could not be certain, given that they were dealing with a personage with links to Britain and semi-royalty.

On close quarters the duke's great niece did not look quite as the good ladies would have expected her to, not only was she surly of expression, whilst she was dressed like the other girls, in white lace trimmed and much tucked muslin , a satin sash and a floral wreath on her ringletted head, she was just noticeably, faintly unkempt, her lace mittens bore food stains, a flower or two had come dislodged from her wreath and she had tucked them behind her ear like a clerk's pencil, the lower rim of a petticoat sagged beneath the hem of her party frock for a few inches, her front left ringlet appeared to be snagged with jam or cream from the cakes, and one of her beautiful pink brocade flat heeled lace up boots, the most elegant and expensive worn by any girl at the party, had a brown smear on the outside edge of the right pair, mud perhaps, or the noxious mess of an animal, dog, hog or horse, hastily half cleaned by frantic rubbing on the grass before coming back in the house. It was strange that there had been no call for a house slave to come and help clean the shoe; that was eccentric too. Her bouquet was already wilting in her sweaty grasp and the stems were broken and bent as if she had used it as a truncheon on an unsuspecting and underserving fellow guest's head.

But then her mother, even closer by one generation to the title and the romance of English nobility, was hardly any better. She had no interest in any of the local gossip or even about any of the important matters in regard establishing the local rankings of prestige. To win Mrs de Domergue's social attention had been the goal of all of Ellen O Hara's adult lady guests from about the district, but Mrs de Domergue had proven not to be interested in them, when they failed to know of any of the books, that she had read, or of the operas she had seen. In turn the ladies of the eminent families of Clayton County were frankly horrified when Mrs de Domergue began to talk of politics from counties in Louisiana and Georgia right up through the state legislatures to Washington and even ventured an opinion or two on international diplomacy and world affairs. What chance would the daughter of such a blue stocking learning to know of how to attract a man or run a house, and keep her clothes and person nicely ordered. It was the last straw when they heard that Mrs de Domergue had never been to England and had never travelled far beyond Georgia and Louisiana for she was born to her well-connected English mother - sister in law to the Duke - well after her arrival the United States and had married into a French family hence the daughter was named Marguerite, Marguerite de Domergue. Although neighbours would point out that the de was the invention of the half English bride, and the family had been plain Domergue the generation before. The ladies felt very short-changed and somehow tricked. So there was in discreet water colour and lilac lady like terms no holds barred in the conversation between the women and the mothers and wives of Clayton County, and they delicately showed their dissatisfaction with the de Domergues, mother and daughter, by venturing to suggest that as her daughter Marguerite was looking a little wilted and disorderly perhaps the Duke's niece should send her daughter off to the sewing room where the women working there would fix her petticoat and her garland in a trice and perhaps even be able to clean her shoes and mittens with lavender oil. Mrs de Domergue had just laughed in her faces. "Oh Daisy, well Daisy's her own girl, always has been. If we repair her dress, it will be all undone within ten minutes. There is very little you can do about her, but let her be. Water finds its own level, that is what I go by with Daisy. I have long ago given up allowing myself to be burdened with any worry about her or indeed lifting a finger if it can't be helped and all's well that ends well. The only person who can ever talk sense into her is her brother. He has been the man of the house since Mr de Domergue died." But Daisy was led to the sewing room.

And that is where Daisy found the scissors, which she pressed into Scarlett's temple, when she ambushed her outside the ballroom and demanded to be taken upstairs to Scarlett's bedroom, threatening that she would stab her with the scissors if she made any sound. Once inside Scarlett's bedroom, Daisy took off her sash and tied Scarlett's arms behind her back. She sat down at the large dressing table, and keeping Scarlett held tight between her knees, began hacking roughly and briskly at Scarlett's dark ringlets.

"Now there are a few things you need to learn. And everyone is always telling me that I don't learn nothing without there being consequences, and the consequences are that you are losing these curls. Firstly I don't care that your Daddy called you the Birthday Princess when he gave a speech, opening the luncheon. Well he's wrong. There is only one princess and that is me and I am a real princess, well nearly, ought to, should have been, but for the French revolution, but the first de Domergue who came to New Orleans he had a title, or so they say and Maman's English family all have titles and real ones too. And secondly my name – you've been saying it with three syllables all day as Dahmer–goo, when it should be said the French way. How dare you insult me with your ignorant mispronunciation."

In a matter of minutes Scarlett's curls were all scattered about the floor and she burst into tears. "Its my birthday and you've made me look so ugly, you can't do this to me. I can't stand ever being ugly" and she even began beating on Daisy's chest when she untied Scarlett's arms, except that Daisy at aged 14 was already wearing stays and Scarlett's eight year old small fists had little effect.

"Well Miss Scarlett, look in the mirror, it seems there is no can't about it. I've gone and made your hair short. And as for being ugly, men and boys all have short hair and everyone always says that they look handsome and treat them like kings who know everything and can do everything. So short hair is not that bad. I'll help you pick up your hair and you can keep it for dolls' wigs." And then Daisy held up the scissors. "I've still got the scissors, and if you stop crying, in order that you don't feel alone with your new hairstyle, we can go down together and find other little girls and bring them back here and cut off their hair. Would you like that? But if you don't stop crying, I'll use the scissors to cut the tips of your pinkies off."

Scarlett nodded and stopped crying. "Don't hurt me."

"And" said Daisy "who shall it be first, your sisters, or the Misses Wilkes, or their cousin from Atlanta, Miss Hamilton, Miss Calvert, or the Tarleton girls or shall we do the whole lot, capture all the little girls, every little girl in the ballroom, cut all their hair off so they all look ugly as you."

Daisy roared with laughter. "A whole ballroom full of girls without their braids and ringlets, before their mothers realised what was happening, and of course no one would point a finger the birthday girl, would they?"

"What about you Miss Daisy, let's start by cutting your curls off."

"Oh no" Daisy grinned "that can't be … you see I am the general and you are the aide de camp. And you must be able to tell the general from his men."

"But I don't want to be a soldier, I don't want to be a horrid man'

"But of course you do, soldiers have fun, they can do anything they want, as long as it helps the nation, and people call it patriotism." Daisy again opened her knees and pulled Scarlett between them and held her tight. The time Scarlett was facing her and Daisy bent forward till her face was level with Scarlett's and she looked Scarlett straight in the eye. "Of course you want to be a soldier, only you have no realised it yet. You know it's a war. I'm telling you straight. It's a war between them and us, men and women, girls and boys. Of course I am not saying there are not some nice boys, like my brother Jody, and that there will not be men and boys that you want to like you and have them do nice things for you. But we have to fight every day, and fight in any way that you can, and never let them take you down, or see you are afraid. Now I don't want you to ever forget that, even if you forget me. Now let's go downstairs together nice and quiet and I'll bring the scissors so we can get them up to the bedroom without any noise and whom shall we get first … it's your choice Miss Scarlett


End file.
